$99 Ouya games console will ship with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean

ANDROID BASED GAMES CONSOLE Ouya is getting closer to a release and its creators are easing out more information about the hardware.

While it was expected to have Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich as its operating system the console, which will cost $99, will ship with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, according to a blog post.

"I'm happy to announce Ouya will run on Android Jelly Bean, the newest version of the Android operating system," said Ouya's Julie in a blog post. "We're making the jump from the old version, Ice Cream Sandwich, to ensure that we're running on the most up-to-date software available. You asked if it could be done, we looked into it, and we made it happen."

The Ouya Software Developer Kit will be out soon and the outfit also revealed some information about that. It recommended that developers start thinking about making their games work on it now so they can be ready for the launch. The hardware is presently in its testing phase. Here is a photo of its PCB.

"This is the heart (and we believe the soul) of the Ouya experience. It's pretty amazing how our engineers have packed in Quad-Core awesomeness into such an unbelievably small package," said the project.

"So, if you're on a kamikaze mission to ship the first ever game for Ouya and can't wait to receive your dev unit to begin testing your game's (or games') performance, just pick up any Tegra 3 Android tablet," it added. "That'll give you an accurate representation as to how your game will perform on an Ouya."

When it's released the console will ship with a gamepad, like you get with other consoles, a single-touch touchpad, and a soft keyboard for simple input. All games will be free to download, but not completely free to play.

It's likely that games development firms will release demos of their games for free with the option to buy them in-app. µ